Taking your Pinterest, Etsy, and Instructable ideas and giving you the low down on the cost, the time, and the skills it takes to make these at home!

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

How to Bake a Brownie Inside an Eggshell

When I first joined Pinterest, this was one of the first posts I laid eyes on and I've been too intimidated to try it until now. I was intimidated partially because a.) it's in a foreign language and b.) it would require converting everything from grams to cups but those were easy feats to conquer. I've converted everything for you here so you can try these at home and impress (or confuse!) your guests at your next dinner party!

To make the brownies you'll need:
* 3/4 cup of chocolate to melt (I used chocolate chips)
* 1/2 cup of butter at room temperature* 3 eggs
* 3/4 cup of sugar
* 1/2 cup of flour
* 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder
* A pinch of salt
* Eggshells (I decided to fill four eggshells but I could have easily of filled a dozen with the amount of brownie mix I had leftover!)

To prepare the eggshells you'll need:
* 1/2 cup of salt
* 4 1/4 C of water
* Some vegetable oil
* A skewer or toothpick
* A corkscrew

Start by taking your corkscrew and poking a hole in the bottom of an egg. You'll want the hole to be the size of your pinky finger.

Once the hole has been made, peel off the shell and using a skewer or a toothpick, start to jab the egg yolk and egg whites inside the egg.

This will help make it easier for the egg to come out of the shell. Do this for all of the eggs you plan to have empty shells of. Once the egg is completely out of the shell, rinse off the inside and outside of the eggshell.

Combine your 1/2 cup of salt and 4 1/4 C of water in a bowl and dunk your eggshells into the water. Make sure the eggshells are completely submerged and filled with water, otherwise they'll float to the top. Once the bubbles have stopped coming to the top, you'll know they'll stay on the bottom.

Let them sit in the salt water for 30 minutes.

And give them another 30 minutes to dry, with the hole down on top of a paper towel.

Once they're dry, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and pour a little vegetable oil inside each eggshell. Roll it around so the oil coats the entire inside of the shell. This will help prevent the brownie from stick to the sides of the shell when baking. Pour out any excess oil that might be inside the shell.

Now it's time to make the brownie mix! Melt the butter and chocolate (as I said, I used chocolate chips and it worked just fine) in a microwave for 30 seconds and then 10 second intervals after that, so as to make sure the chocolate doesn't burn (mine took 50 seconds total).

In a separate bowl, add the 3 eggs and sugar and mix (I used what used to be inside the eggshells - no point in letting it go to waste!)

Pour the brownie mix into a plastic bag and cut off one of the corners, as this will make it easier to fill the eggshells with brownie mix.

Slowly add the brownie mix to each eggshell, filling them up 3/4ths of the way. If you hold the eggshell up to a light, you'll be able to see how much you've filled.

Once your eggshells are filled, carefully place them in a muffin tin (you can use foil to keep them centered, if you like) and stick them in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

When you take them out, they'll be very hot but you need to cut off any excess brownie mix or else it'll be harder to do once it has cooled. I recommend holding the eggs with a wet paper towel or oven mitt and using a knife to cut off the excess brownie that has spilled over.

Let them cool completely before removing the shell (I put mine in the fridge for half an hour and that did the trick).

Remove the eggshell and eat your egg-shaped brownie! I had one right after another... needless to say, they're a little addicting! Your dinner guests will be so confused when their dessert is presented to them as an egg!

TOTAL COSTS: About $20 to make at least 9 brownie eggs (if you buy a dozen)
$2.50 for chocolate chips
$.99 for butter
$2.49 for eggs
$2.69 for sugar
$3.29 for flour
$4.49 for cocoa powder
$.99 for salt
$3 for vegetable oil
Corkscrew and toothpick/skewer already on hand but you could use a fork to poke the hole and the toothpick or skewer is only to help get the egg yolk and egg whites out faster... if you have patience, then you don't need anything.

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 2 hours, 18 minutes
5 minutes/egg to empty
30 minutes to soak in salt water
30 minutes to dry
25 minutes to make batter and fill
18 minutes to bake
30 minutes to chill

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
These are actually a lot easier to make than one might expect. You have to be very careful not to burn yourself when getting the excess brownie off the egg but other than that, it's just a matter of being patient. Waiting for the egg to drip out of the shell, waiting for the eggs in the salt water, waiting for the eggs to dry, waiting to devour them...